Flying monkeys are the people an abuser sends instead of going themselves. You block the narcissist; their cousin texts you. You go no-contact with a parent; three relatives call about how much she's suffering. The term — borrowed from the winged monkeys the Wicked Witch dispatches to do her dirty work in The Wizard of Oz — describes abuse by proxy: third parties recruited to pressure, monitor, guilt, or discredit a target while the abuser's own hands stay clean.
What Do Flying Monkeys Actually Do?
The job description has a few standard duties:
- Intelligence gathering: asking how you're doing, where you're living, whether you're seeing anyone — and reporting back
- Pressure campaigns: "She's your mother." "He's really changed." "Life's too short for grudges."
- Message delivery: relaying apologies, threats, or guilt the abuser won't send directly
- Reputation work: repeating the abuser's version of the breakup or estrangement to anyone who'll listen — the ground troops of a smear campaign
- Validation supply: reassuring the abuser that you're the unreasonable one
The defining feature isn't malice. It's direction. The contact serves the abuser's goals, not yours — even when it arrives wrapped in concern.
Are Flying Monkeys Villains or Victims?
Usually neither, which is what makes them effective. Psychotherapist Kaytee Gillis, writing in Psychology Today, notes that flying monkeys may act knowingly or unknowingly — many have simply been handed a sympathetic, curated story ("I don't know why she cut me off, I'm devastated") and believe they're brokering peace. Others comply out of self-preservation, because staying useful to a narcissist is safer than becoming the next target. And some genuinely enjoy the drama and borrowed importance.
This matters for strategy: you can't fact-check your way out. The recruit's loyalty was built on emotion and access, not evidence, so your documentation rarely converts anyone. Gillis's advice is colder and more practical — treat information as the supply line. Assume anything you tell a mutual contact can reach the abuser, keep what you do say neutral and factual, and reserve the real story for people with no channel back.
In Practice
Two months after you end things with your ex, his sister — who you always liked — asks you to coffee. It's warm at first. Then: "He's honestly in such a bad place. He told me what happened, and I just think you two owe each other one conversation." You give a vague answer about needing space. Within a day, your ex texts: "Heard you told my sister you need space. From WHAT exactly?" The coffee wasn't a coffee; it was a wellness check you didn't order, conducted by someone who doesn't know she was deployed. The sister isn't evil. She's a courier who believes she's a peacemaker.
What to Do About Flying Monkeys
Go grey on information. Short, pleasant, factual, boring. "I'm doing well, hope you are too." Nothing that can be carried back and weaponized.
Don't argue your case to the monkeys. Every passionate self-defense becomes new material. One neutral line — "there's more to it than you've heard, and I'm not going to relitigate it" — then change the subject.
Audit your channels. If someone consistently shows up after the abuser needs something, that's not coincidence; that's a route. Quietly close it.
Protect the inner circle. Keep one or two confidants with zero connection to the abuser. That's where the unfiltered truth lives.
If you're trying to figure out whether a mutual friend's sudden concern is genuine or carrying someone else's agenda, mapping the pattern of contacts with Lainie can make the supply line visible fast.